Michael Ridpath - Shadows of War

‘What about this woman Constance? Who is she?’

‘That’s a good question. She was Millie’s companion in Holland. She is some sort of friend of Sir Henry Alston, who is one of my father’s fellow directors at Gurney Kroheim and a Conservative MP. He’s definitely pro-German, but then my father is pro-German. Hell, I’m pro-German. But I think Alston might be pro-Nazi, which is a very different thing. You know that as well as anyone.’

‘I do,’ said Anneliese.

‘I have my doubts about Constance.’

‘Why?’

‘We met at this place called the Russian Tea Rooms. On the surface it looks very respectable, but they had copies of Truth there — it’s an obnoxious anti-Semitic magazine. A kind of British Völkischer Beobachter .’

‘I’ve never seen it,’ said Anneliese.

‘Good. Don’t. Also, I spotted Captain Maule Ramsay; he’s a right-wing pro-Nazi MP, much further to the right than Alston. Constance seemed at home there. Her story doesn’t stack up very well; for example, she said she got up early in the morning to follow Millie to her rendezvous with Theo, but she didn’t really explain why she had done that. Or at least not satisfactorily. I’d really like to do some more digging, but I can’t. I don’t have the time.’

Anneliese sipped her drink. Conrad felt a surge of warmth towards her. Talking to her had lifted some of enormous weight he felt bearing down on him. Only some of it, and only for a moment, but it had felt good to speak to her, and he was grateful that she had made him do it. Naturally he was bloody angry, who wouldn’t be?

She seemed different, a little less withdrawn, a little less wrapped up in her own misery, a little more like the old Anneliese.

‘Perhaps I could help,’ she said, putting her glass down and looking straight at him.

‘You? How? You can’t go to Holland to see Theo.’

‘No. But I could find out more about Constance. She was with Millie when she died. It sounds as if you think she might know what really happened. If I make friends with her, maybe I can discover what that was.’

‘But you are half-Jewish. And German. How are you going to do that?’

‘I’m half not-Jewish. And I know a lot about Nazis. If you are right about her, she might enjoy having a Nazi German friend.’

Conrad smiled. ‘Anneliese, I really appreciate you doing this for me, but don’t worry about it.’

‘Why not?’ said Anneliese. ‘I saw Wilfrid Israel last Saturday and asked him if I could do something for Captain Foley. Something secret to help the war. I haven’t heard back yet, but I really want to do something useful. And if I can’t do something useful for your country, perhaps I can do something useful for you.’

Conrad realized he was talking to the old Anneliese. And he liked it.

‘All right,’ he said. ‘It sounds crazy to me, but if you really want to do it, have a go.’

Kensington, London, 20 November

‘I hope you can persuade them to release her, Conrad,’ Lord Oakford said. ‘It will be a great comfort to your mother to know that Millie is safely buried in St Peter’s churchyard.’

‘It will be to all of us,’ said Conrad. Although he knew they would all be relieved if he succeeded in bringing Millie back to Somerset, he also knew that the hole she had left in their family would always be there, just as her elder brother’s absence had hovered over them for the last ten years. His mother had been near to hysteria, more upset even than she had been after Edward’s death. Lady Oakford was usually the calm centre of the family, the stable counterweight to her husband’s moods, the source of common sense and sanity. Her raw grief, although it should have been understandable, was a shock for her husband and her son. Any activity was better than nothing.

So Oakford had jumped at Conrad’s suggestion that he go and fetch Millie’s body, and that morning had spoken directly to the Ambassador in The Hague, whom of course he knew, to arrange it. Conrad had booked a flight to Schiphol in two days’ time. Colonel Rydal had reluctantly agreed to a few days’ extension of his leave.

They were sitting in Lord Oakford’s study in the house in Kensington Square. Although there was a copy of The Times by his father’s armchair, it was unread. When Conrad had entered the room, his father had been staring out of the window, and when he had turned towards his son, his eyes were glazed, vacant. Lord Oakford’s passivity was worrying in its own way; it seemed fragile, a thin shell that could at any moment be shattered by the rage that Conrad knew must be bubbling underneath. But at least it had allowed Conrad to be civil to him while he was forced to stay at Kensington Square. Conrad was doing his best to control his own temper, which was extremely difficult, given that he still blamed his father for Millie’s death. He hadn’t forgiven him; he didn’t see how he could ever forgive him.

‘Can you tell me a bit about the Duke of Windsor?’ Conrad asked. ‘I missed all the fuss over the abdication, I was in Spain.’

‘What do you want to know?’

‘Was he forced to abdicate? And if he was, were there reasons beyond his desire to marry Wallis Simpson? His pro-German attitude perhaps?’

‘There’s no doubt that Mrs Simpson was the main reason. The government, and the dominions, felt he couldn’t be king and be married to a divorced woman, which it was clear he had every intention of doing. Many people felt that putting his lover before his country was an appalling failure of duty as king. Winston supported him, but what would you expect from Winston?’

‘Was anyone concerned about his friendship with Germany?’

‘Yes, they were,’ Oakford admitted. ‘He had had a number of meetings with senior Nazis, in particular Hess and Ribbentrop. When he became king, he took a more active interest in government policy than his father had. He put pressure on Stanley Baldwin not to react to Hitler’s invasion of the Rhineland in 1936. There was a lot of concern about Mrs Simpson and her friendship with various unsavoury Germans in London. Ribbentrop saw her all the time while he was German Ambassador, sent her roses every day. The security service had a sordid file on her.’

‘Sordid?’

‘Oh, yes. She spent time in China, you know, and there is supposed to be a file somewhere about techniques she learned in brothels while she was there. Something called the “Singapore Grip”. Do you know what that is?’

‘No,’ said Conrad, although he could have a guess. But since he was talking to his father, he decided not to.

‘Probably just as well,’ said his father. ‘They also discovered that while Edward was king, Mrs Simpson was seeing a car salesman named Trundle whom she appeared to be paying.’ Oakford sighed. ‘It’s very painful to watch your sovereign abandon his kingdom for a woman who is sleeping with a car salesman.’

‘I can see that,’ said Conrad. ‘And you? What did you think about the abdication?’

‘As you probably remember, I fell out with him over his interference in the Abyssinian affair.’ Conrad did remember: in 1935 Mussolini had made a grab for Abyssinia and the British and French governments, with Samuel Hoare as Foreign Secretary had let him get away with it, strongly encouraged by the then Prince of Wales. Lord Oakford didn’t disagree with the government’s policy, but he had resigned from the Cabinet over what he considered the misleading statements from the government about their negotiations with the French and Italians. Lying, he had called it.

‘And I think he was a bloody fool to abdicate. He should have toughed it out. Henry VIII did — you could say that divorce is what kicked off the Church of England. He was also a bloody fool to hobnob with the Nazis, but I’m sure he doesn’t actually agree with them. And he has good instincts for peace. Did you read that broadcast he made from Verdun last spring?’